A technology that allows continuous communication even if a failure occurs on a communication path is known. This is possible by providing a redundant communication path between the devices. As an example of such a technology, an information processing device that includes a plurality of fiber channel cards with a plurality of ports, and that communicates with a storage device via a fiber channel in a multipath configuration is known.
Such an information processing device, for example, uses two ports on one fiber channel card as active ports, and two ports on another fiber channel card as standby ports. When a failure occurs on one of the active ports, the information processing device switches the faulty active port to a standby port. Between the standby ports on the other fiber channel card, the information processing device switches the standby port connected to the storage device, to which the faulty active port is also connected, to an active port. The information processing device then continuously communicates with the storage device via the active port.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2000-339105
Patent Document 2: International Publication Pamphlet No. WO 2001/001262
However, in the technology that communicates with the storage device via the fiber channel in a multipath configuration as described above, when the faulty active port is switched to a standby port, the active port and the standby port are both on a single fiber channel card. Hence, there is a problem in that it is not possible to replace the fiber channel card with the faulty port, while the information processing device is in operation.
When the fiber channel card with the faulty port is replaced or when the cable connected to the active port is disengaged, while the active port and the standby port are both on the fiber channel card, the communication between the information processing device and the storage device will be temporarily interrupted.